Unfilled time is dangerous stuff and the old adage that “the devil makes work for idle hands” is probably largely true. There can be few things more unproductive than a day in which you have no plans. Don’t get me wrong, a day off spent doing nothing can sometimes be absolute bliss, but a day that should be spent working when you have no plans can be quite the opposite!

To quote Chuck Close again, “inspiration is for amateurs”. As an artist you’re better off painting anything than sitting around waiting for inspiration to strike. If you can’t bear to paint just anything then get out of the studio and go for a walk, have a coffee, see a friend, visit an exhibition, do anything that distracts you from the problem in hand. For it is often in doing something unconnected that inspiration strikes. Ever tried to remember a name and suffered memory constipation? It’s normally when we stop trying to remember that the memory pops into place. Inspiration is a similar mental process. Trying to think of something inspirational is a dead alley, you need fresh input and distraction.

A few of my latest paintings have been the result of a need to paint… something, anything! I’m not likely to paint a 21st century Mona Lisa, a) because it’s not a painting I like particularly and b) because I need to put in a few thousand more hours before I get that good… if ever! But the act of painting is a great teacher, to the artist that is prepared to be honest about their work. We learn new techniques, we hopefully see what we’re doing wrong and work on ways to fix it, we strive more and more with each new picture to express what’s inside of us straining to make it to canvas! Hopefully eventually we find our own artistic voice.

I think in this way, art mimics life. In life we copy people, we see characteristics that they may have and we try to emulate them, we try to incorporate something of people we admire within ourselves. Art is much the same, the art we admire we often try to emulate. We incorporate things in our own work that we have learnt from studying others and that is perfectly fine. We are all as people a mixture of the friends and family that have helped shaped who we are, to a greater extent, we get to choose who we are. In art we are shaped by the myriad of styles and art that we have seen, admired and tried to copy.

Anyway it seems to still be warm and sunny here on the South Coast of the UK. Summer seems reluctant to leave and Autumn a late guest that’s yet to arrive. Normally I’d be sitting here typing and looking out at leaden skies and feeling the dullness of the Autumn rains, but it’s warm and sunny and I’m between a new commission and a just finished portrait which finally means I have time to blog. So here’s the portrait.

“Lauren” is oil of canvas. Lauren is talented local animator and a family friend and she was a real sport in posing for the reference shots for this picture. Thanks Lauren.

Finished portrait. Sadly my camera won’t show the shadow detail in the hair etc. without over exposing the skin tones, so this is the best I could manage.

Early stages with some detail, but mostly underpainting. The left shoulder as you look at the picture was to high and bulky at this point.

Resolved most of it by now. The squid is one of Lauren’s characters and he does make it to the final piece, he was repainted and hardly visible in the final piece photo’ though. Also I improved the skins tones and deepened the shadows, picked up the highlights etc.

Detail.

Painted using mostly Winsor and Newton oils (Artist’s range and Winton), some Michael Harding tubes and some Jackson’s Artist’s oils. The Winsor and Newton Winton colours are generally excellent, but a few like Raw Sienna are poor at tinting, so for those I’m currently using Michael Harding… currently. The Jackson’s own brand oil colours are also excellent and great value in the UK. Michael Harding’s Raw Sienna was a bit gritty, but at least it stains well. If you can recommend a good Raw Sienna I’d be happy to try it.

Sometimes when you haven’t painted for a while, it doesn’t matter what you paint, you just need to paint. It’s a bit like pushing a car. I don’t know if you’ve ever pushed a car, but you’ve gotta keep it moving, once you let it stop it takes ten times the effort to get it into motion again! So in defence of the subject of this picture I didn’t plan on painting a flying dog, it was a spur of the moment sort of thing that just seemed like a good idea at the time and I needed something to get me back at the easel again. The something in this case was our small fluffy Jack-Russell called Hunny.

Occasionally she gets picked up by one of our boys and when she does she rather patiently does so with a look on her face just like the one in the painting, a look of quiet but disapproving resignation.

So here she is (I’ve included some shots of the process), Hunny the world’s only flying canine in oil on wood panel.

It’s been a while since my last painting post because I’ve been beavering away on this project and occasionally getting distracted, but the current project is finally finished and she’s ready to show to the world!

Bit of a change as this is the first time I’ve tried painting on panel, which has been a learning process. Art’s all about learning though isn’t it? Every time I use a new colour or new medium, lighting, surface, whatever, I learn something new. For instance, this project was the first time I used Peach Black. I splashed out on a Sennelier tube, and even that taught me that expensive isn’t always better as the tube leaked black oil all over the worktop, but the colour was pretty cool… literally, it was cool. Peach black it turns out has a very blue undertone and turns a sort of navy blue when blended with white, which was handy as that’s what I wanted, again, cool!

Choosing a panel was harder than expected though. Seriously, most artists seem to hold on to the secret of which panel they use like it was a secret handed down to them from centuries of past masters. In the end I opted for ply. There were some concerns about delamination if it gets damp, but hadn’t planned on making a boat out of the stuff, just painting on it. For that matter any surface is affected by damp. So I gave my ply a couple of coats of gesso (another new experience) and got to it. Gesso it also turns out is not a mystery. I don’t need to melt any rabbit skins or blend it from a recipe found in Il libro dell‘arte by Cennino Cennini (great book though). I just bought a pot and slapped it on… carefully, I slapped it on carefully and artistically.

Honestly there is so much mystery about this and that, what you can do and can’t do as an artist and some of it can be downright wrong. Boris Vallejo for instance once mentioned, in something I read when I was younger, that true artists never mix with white, they prefer yellow. Never mix with white… now it was a long time ago, so I’ll give Boris the benefit of the doubt I may have read it wrong, but one single stupid comment can have students tied in all sorts of knots, and good practical books on the subject – apart from Ralph Mayer’s Artists Handbook – are hard to find.

After that little rant, if you know any great books on the oil painting process please share them as comments.

So, where was I, panel and gesso. Yes, panel – cheap, easy to buy and to cut to size yourself, or you can ask the timber merchant to cut it for you, a good merchant will cut it for a minimal charge or for free if you’re buying a sheet. I would advise paying the extra for the top quality stuff though, the cheaper stuff has more gaps in between laminates which are undesirable in the long term, but fine to use to practice on. Gesso – buy a tub and paint it on. That simple. The one I bought is water soluble and just needs a little fine sanding between coats. If you want to do it the Renaissance way then rub the gesso down (made according to Cennino’s rabbity recipe of course) with a cuttlefish, if you haven’t got a cuttlefish, then a very fine wet-and-dry or sand paper will do. The more coats the better, but I think three should do.

Anyway, to the painting.

Initial drawing from photo’ and light under painting. In future I think I’ll aim for much deeper colour and more contrast, maybe even a complete sketch in black/burnt umber and white with full contrast.

The “sock puppet” under painting, basically just an attempt to get the panel covered in paint to help future layers move better across the surface.

Getting there. More colour and definition added, but still wasn’t happy about the lack of drama in the background.

Final-ish

Close up and detail

The reason I chose this photo’ of my niece Amy is probably self evident, it’s fun and I liked the colour scheme.

Winter seems to have come back for a visit today. It’s cold and damp and unwelcome, but it did give me a reason to hide in the shed from the cold and take a few shots. I’m still trying to understand the new camera, it has a lot more functions than my phone! But we’re slowly becoming friends and I think it may have even forgiven me for dropping it by now.

My eldest son Joe has been building a folding guitar for a school exam project and whilst helping him the other day I thought the shed might make a good place to play with the Nikon. Anyway here are a few shots of that quintessentially English of buildings, the garden shed.